Follow the Grace case on the Web

The Daily Inter Lake

Students from The University of Montana are providing gavel-to-gavel online coverage of the Missoula trial of chemical giant W.R. Grace in what is being called the most extensive environmental criminal trial in U.S. history.

A live blog created by students from the UM schools of law and journalism will provide a virtual seat in the courtroom as top Grace executives face criminal charges of knowingly endangering lives by hiding the health risks of asbestos, according to a UM news release.

For the duration of the trial, students will provide dispatches from the courtroom as well as background and issue articles and multimedia presentations on their blog, http://blog.umt.edu/gracecase.

Communities in Montana and around the country were exposed to asbestos-contaminated vermiculite ore that W.R. Grace mined and shipped from Libby.

Millions of tons of asbestos-contaminated ore from Libby were shipped to 236 locations in 39 states, ranging from Easthampton, Mass., to Wilder, Ky., and Los Angeles County, Calif. Workers at more than a dozen sites were exposed to greater concentrations of asbestos than those in the Libby mine itself, according to the news release.

"We hope to offer access to the trial to the far-flung communities that handled W.R. Grace ore," said Nadia White, an assistant professor of journalism at UM. "Asbestos-contaminated ore was shipped throughout the country from Montana. We'd like to give people in those communities a chance to peer back into this state to decide for themselves whether justice is being served."